If you live in Brazil, then chances are you've caught Zeebo fever; not to be confused with that Brazilian purpuric fever that reportedly broke out a little while ago, which has little if anything to do with videogame consoles.

Techtoy's newly released cell phone-tech powered gaming console lets users play games (ranging from $3-$13) from previous generations of consoles and platforms that can be downloaded thanks to the console's free 3G-powered connection. The Zeebo costs about $200 (with lower prices expected in other markets) and, as Engadget reports, it comes with FIFA 2009, Need for Speed Carbon and Brain Training installed, and includes three credits that can be used to download Prey Evil, Quake and Quake II for free.

At this point, the console is only available in Brazil, but Techtoy is expected to expand distribution to other countries over the next few years as it continues to target middle-income families in developing markets. Given the dominance, availability and relative affordability of the big three consoles here in the U.S., don't expect to see the Zeebo in your local game shop anytime soon. I guess all we can do now is wonder whether the console will fail or not.

In-game advertising is certainly a contentious topic of discussion amongst gamers. But regardless of whether you love or hate seeing ads for real-world products in your games, the business of in-game advertising isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s only going to get bigger from here on out. How big? Well, thank you for asking.According to analysts who make it their business to know these sorts of things, in-game ad spending will hit $1 billion in 2014. Even more impressive is that analysts predict in-game ads will make up about one and a half percent of annual global ad spending in that same time. So what is it about games that has advertisers so willing and ready to fork over that kind of cash? Futures Director at GroupM (a global media investment network) Adam Smith explains via press release:

“Games are proven recession-beaters with an ad-funded online model that actually works. There are many ways in which advertising can help evolve business models for video games, and we have only just begun to explore that potential. Given gaming is now a mainstream leisure interest, in-game deserves the same consideration as mobile and social media.”

So it seems that all of you who have helped make gaming the entertainment juggernaut it is today have simultaneously created the next great fertile territory for advertising. You’re…welcome? Again, how you view this news will vary greatly on what your attitude is towards in-game advertising. And if you haven’t yet formed an opinion about in-game ads, you will have plenty of opportunities from here on out.

Microsoft is giving gamers down-under a bit of extra love in the form of a new Xbox 360 bundle, which includes a boring old Xbox 360 Pro and copies of both Gears and Gears 2, set to be released on June 4 for $449 AU (around $350 USD). Whether the bundle will be available outside of Australia is still unknown.

In other bundle news, gamers in the U.K. will be getting their hands on a new PS3 bundle this week that will include a copy of the upcoming electro-action title inFamous and an 80GB console. The bundle will go on sale May 29 for £299, although Amazon UK will be selling it for £279.99, £10 less than the standalone console.

Would any non-360/PS3 owners here feel compelled to make the next-gen console leap if these bundles were made available in the U.S.?

Well, the good news is that we now know that Microsoft has most likely already told retailers what the 48 version of Windows 7 are going to cost. The bad news is that we poor schmoes here in the public sector are going to have to wait until mid-June sometime before we find out.

That is, of course, unless TechArpgot their hands on some bad information, which could always be the case when it comes to topics such as this one. But given that Windows 7 is expected by the end of the year, a little mid-year info blitz makes sense. Then again, eager consumers worried about the new OS’ suspected higher price tag across the SKU board might not want to hear that news just yet.

So whether you want to believe it or not, chances are pretty good that right around the time all the E3 dust has hopefully settled we’ll have some solid info for once about this squirrely OS.

What do you expect the prices will be, and what do you hope the prices will be?

Given what little I’ve actually heard about Microsoft’s secondary display system SideShow, it’s hardly surprising that the company is looking for ways to get the word out and expand the product's reach. Microsoft's newest strategy involves targeting PC gamers, which is particularly timely considering the company has said not to expect any new Games for Windows news at this year’s E3.

However, as Slashgear points out, Microsoft apparently sees a potentially booming market for secondary displays that work fluidly and intuitively with games to free up space on a user’s primary display by relocating elements like menus and inventory screens onto a separate screen. After some market research, Microsoft found that gamers’ ideal sub-display would be a 6.4 inch, touch screen compatible, widescreen enabled rotating screen. You know, nothing too fancy.

I can definitely see the value of such a display system, even though I would never need/use one. My guess is that getting developers on board might be a hard sell, especially if they would have to devote a significant amount of time retooling their games to work as intuitively with the sub-displays as Microsoft envisions they should. Also, just because gamers say they aren’t opposed to this kind of add-on display doesn’t mean they’d pay just any old price for it. I guess that’s why this whole thing is still in the discussion phase at the moment, complete with Photoshop representations.

If you find yourself counting the seconds until Palm launches its highly anticipated Pre smartphone on June 6, and you despise mail-in rebates, then you really need to listen up. I’m only to tell you this throughout this entire post.

According to Brighthand, Best Buy is offering Palm Pre buyers the chance to undercut Sprint’s own $100 mail-in rebate offer, by offering the phones for the post-rebate price of $200 right at checkout (with a two-year contract of course). How Best Buy was able to secure such an offer is curious, especially since the phone will also be available at Wal-Mart, Radio Shack and Sprint stores (the exclusive carrier at this point).

Never mind who Best Buy had to put in the ground to pull this off, it's good news for potential Palm Pre users out there. Now there’s just the small issue of actually being able to get your hands on one. I wonder where the biggest line will be…

When it comes to high-quality gaming headsets, TRITTON Technologies' AX line of Dolby-powered 5.1 surround sound headphones is right at the top of the list. So when it comes to new additions to the critically praised line of ear-pleasers, it only makes sense to reveal them at a massive gaming event. If only there were just such an event coming up soon...

That’s right TRITTON fans. Two new headphones will be on display at this year’s E3, and given the company’s track record for churning out quality products, audiophilic gamers everywhere have a lot to be excited about.

The first headset is the AX 720, which kicks up the Dolby goodness to the next level thanks to the inclusion of Dolby Digital Headphone technology, inline audio controls and a separate control for chat volume. It also sports USB microphone support for PS3, PC and Mac, Xbox Live voice compatibility and a breakaway cable for MP3 player and/or iPhone support.

The other is the AX 400, a new Dolby Headphone-powered wireless headset. The Wii-compatible headphones pack the same audio punch as the AX 720, minus the in-line audio controls obviously. Plus, no wires means you're free to dive around your living room, as you act out the in-game action, without having to sacrifice audio quality. Sweet deal.

And just to show how confident they are in their products, TRITTON will be holding a competition at their E3 booth where attendees will be able to test out and then judge headsets from various companies in an all-out, goes-to-11, audio battle royal.

To find out who wins the “TRITTON Challenge”, be sure to tune into G4’s E3 ’09 coverage starting June 1.

The new $1,300 HDR-XR520V Camcorder from Sony, which records hi-def 1920 x 1080 video, has 240 GB of space, includes built-in geotagging and has an LCD touch panel might be the perfect solution for capturing all of your precious memories. Find out for sure in today's Tech Review.

That's right mobile gaming fanatics. GamePark's new GP2X Wiz portable game system is now available. The new device sports a 533Mhz 3D accelerator plus flash engine, 1 gigabyte flash memory, SD card support, and will run you about $180.

The Wiz is also built on the king of open-source OSs Linux, which, alongside the Wiz SDK, means users can create their own games. Pretty nifty. You can also play other people’s games, along with a host of other free and/or downloadable games that Wiz plans to release on a monthly basis via an app store launching sometime in the summer.

The device includes 12 games right out of the box, but some of those are demos for games coming out down the road. It also supports every conceivable kind of multimedia (e-books, video, comics, music, etc.), and features a new slimmed-down design.

Everything just seems to be coming up lower latency for AMD this week. First rival Intel gets slapped with a $1.45 billion anti-competition fine for illegal maneuvering that infringed on AMD’s business.

And now, AMD has revealed that its new ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics processor can produce 1.36 TeraFLOPs of computing power and is capable of generating clock speeds close to 1Gigahertz. All them fancy numbers hurt my head, so I’m just going to guess that with the new processor, you could probably play Crysis on the medium detail setting and experience minimal slow down.

AMD touts the “redefining” HD processor as “delivering the best game experience in its price range, including brand new groundbreaking DirectX 10.1 titles.” Why do I have a feeling that Nvidia would question the validity of that statement?

And speaking of that whole “nearing the 1Ghz mark,” Reuters’ Eddie Chan makes the point that, given the ubiquity of gamers overclocking graphics cards and/or processors, this “elusive” graphical milestone was most likely surpassed a while ago. Chan goes on to say that in an attempt to keep the wind in its sails, AMD apparently refers to its new processor as “factory-overclocked". Sounds a bit like the "This one goes to 11" coversation from Spinal Tap, no?

Pricing and availability options are still unknown, but I'm waiting to hear back from an AMD rep, so stay tuned.

Anyone out there tearing through games at blistering speeds thanks to the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics card released last month?

If you're in the market for a hardcore gaming PC, then you should consider the FXSLI from Maingear with its brushed aluminum case, a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7 processor, dual Nvidia GTX video cards and 6GB of RAM. Whether or not you should actually buy it is another thing entirely. Find out if it's worth the $2,900 in today's Tech Review.

Chris Hardwick joins Kevin Pereira for this Camera Week review of the Pentax P70 digital camera, and sizes it up its features, like face and blink detection, smile capture and pixel track shake reduction.